The power of the Spanish language in 12 bits of data

Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría (Deputy Prime Minister of Spain) expressed her pride in the fact that Spanish was the language spoken on Christopher Columbus’ caravels; the tongue in which Góngora y Quevedo fought their acerbic battle of wits; the parlance used by Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel García Márquez in their debates.

The deputy prime minister attended yesterday the launch of the book  «Homenaje universal al idioma español» () —sponsored by Fundación Independiente — and recalled some of the numeric data showing the growth of Spanish across the world. After an introduction in which she talked about history and common ties, she mentioned several figures that deserve to be kept in mind: 

–      470 million people around the world speak Spanish as their mother tongue. “The mother tongue,” added the vice president, “is the one that gives voice to our thoughts. Therefore, it also determines our way of being, and our way of thinking.”

–      Of those 470 million, 45 million do not live in a country where Spanish is the official language. Twenty-one countries have Spanish as their official language.

Read original article here (ABC)